St. Maarten - Cruise Day 5

Thursday 2/28/08

We woke up to find another new beautiful view from our balcony. What a way to wake up.

In St. Maarten we had signed up for the "Butterfly Farm and Marigot" shore excursion. It began with a driving tour of both sides of St. Maarten. Half of the island is Dutch, and the other half is French. They are completely separate in some ways... but seem to have no issues "getting along". The people have a freedom to live as Dutch residents and work in the French side (or vise versa). They have 2 completely separate governments. One side uses the electrical system we have here in the US... the other side uses the European voltage (so, for example, if your hair dryer fits the outlets on one side... it won't fit on the other side without an adapter). They even spell the name of the island differently. On one side it's St. Maarten and on the other it's St. Martin. It's an interesting place.

Our first stop on our excursion was to the Butterfly Farm. (They gave us all a card with their website address. I must say I'm much more impressed with the site then I thought I would be.) It was such a fun place... I think we could have stayed there much longer. We started out listening to a guide go through the life cycle of the butterflies and showing us examples of the different stages. After the "learning portion" we were shown how to get the butterflies to spend a little time on your hand or finger. The guide used Zoe as an example. After squishing her fingers around in the orange juice the butterfly was happy to walk up and drink right from Zoe.


After being given the idea of how to get the butterflies to let you "hold" them we were given a free cup of rum punch (although Zoe and I just took the cup of regular punch). Then we were on our our to drink our punch or share it with the butterflies.

There was quite a variety of butterflies to see. I thought these owl butterflies were some of the most interesting.

Zoe really like the Blue Morpho Butterfly (thanks to Diego)... but they weren't cooperative about getting close enough to even try to hold them. Nick and I were both able to get a couple of these black and red butterflies. Unfortunately I'm not sure what they were called.


We didn't have much luck getting anymore butterflies onto Zoe's hands... and she wanted so badly to hold some more of them. Around the "farm" there were tables set up with cut fruit on them to attract the butterflies.

I figured if Zoe couldn't hold any actual butterflies on her fingers... she might enjoy at least holding the orange with the butterfly on it. That did satisfy her... and she got a close look at 4 or 5 more butterflies.

Once our time was up at the butterfly farm we were on our way to continue our tour and stop for an hour in Marigot. It was a little town center type area. Mostly set up for tourist shopping. Nick and I could possibly be the only people on the cruise who weren't really interested in shopping at all. We spent our time taking a few photos and having lunch.

The beige building behind this boat is actually a shopping mall.

After our brief stop in Marigot we were on our way back to the ship. Even though neither of us were very interested in shopping we did make one purchase that I'm sure a lot of you will be interested in hearing about. At the last dock area shop before actually getting to our ship we stopped and bought a camera. A fancy schmancy camera just for me. An Olympus E-510. We got a really great deal that included the camera body, 2 lenses, a camera bag and a memory card. Plus, duty free... you just can't beat a deal topped off with being tax free. I could have just fallen over from unexpected shopping happiness. Happy Birthday to me! (Although, the camera literally is scaring me to death... and I have this feeling of needing to sign up for a class to learn how to use it properly immediately). Hopefully I'll come up with some photos soon that make me feel worthy of the fanciness.

With shopping bag in hand we headed back to our ship (the one on the right).

One more photo of the view from our balcony as we were getting ready to go enjoy some swimming before our much needed nap time.

Zoe only liked swimming a little bit (yeah right). I have a child who could swim all day every day.

Nick enjoyed a few trips down the amazing water slide that was right there on the ship deck.

Zoe and I enjoyed this one pool quite a bit.

We also spent some time in the "bubble water". Zoe loved the warm whirlpool... and I wasn't going to object to a little warm pool relaxing.

After swimming we followed along with our normal snooze, shower, prepare for dinner routine. One last look out our balcony before dinner gave us a view of the sunset.

Dinner was again just delicious. For Zoe dinner involved quite a bit of butter. She gets so excited with herself when she can spread her own butter. Such concentration. The butter kept her attention for quite a long time... and whatever keeps her busy while I peacefully enjoy my meal is a wonderful thing.

Boring people we are... after dinner... same old thing. Zoe off to play with her camp friends and Nick and I off to the show and the casino. 10pm for Zoe's camp pick up. Back to the room to meet our newest towel creature before bed time. I think this monkey was my favorite.
Our last port day was an enjoyable one.